Andhra's Covid-19 mortality rate low with aggressive testing: Jagan Reddy

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy on Tuesday said that the state could keep the COVID-19 mortality rate low with aggressive testing and contact tracing.

He urged the Centre to provide help in ramping up the medical infrastructure.

During a video conference with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Chief Minister said the state could maintain a low mortality rate of 0.89 per cent as it has been adopting the strategy of aggressive testing in containment clusters, identifying the positive cases and providing them treatment and containing the spread of the pandemic.

"So far, we have done 25,34,304 tests of which 2.35 lakh persons were positive. Tests per million in our Sate has logged 47,459. When the first case was reported in March, we had no virology lab and had to send the samples to Pune and from that stage, we have progressively improved the infrastructure and now all the 13 districts in our state have testing labs and hospitals for COVID-19 and they are self-reliant," Chief Minister Jagan said.

"Together with the Rapid Antigen tests, tests have crossed the 70,000-mark and the average is at 60,000 tests per day. Samples are also being taken through 100 mobile labs in at least 1500 areas and we could penetrate even into the remote areas. After the testing is done, depending on the severity, we have been sending them to home isolation, or to COVID care centres or COVID hospitals. We have also increased the strength of ambulance vehicles to 1088 and the vehicle is available at Mandal (block) level so that anyone who requires testing should not be deprived of the facility," he added.

The state has 138 COVID Care Hospitals with 37,189 beds and for people with mild symptoms and it has identified 109 COVID Care Centres with a bed capacity of over 56,000.

"We have increased the bed strength with oxygen facility from 4,286 to over 11,000 during the past three months. About 32,000 personnel from doctors to nursing staff, technicians and other staff are working in 138 COVID care hospitals. We have also started helpdesks to guide the people on how to go about when symptoms are found," he said.